Soprano Claudia Boyle will perform for Con Brio season finale
CON Brio end their 2023-24 Sligo Music Series on a very high note indeed.
The final concert in what has been a hugely successful series features one of the finest Irish opera singers of her generation, soprano Claudia Boyle. Claudia graduated from the Royal Irish Academy of Music with first-class honours and became an Opera Theatre Company Young Artist before joining the Young Singers Project at the 2010 Salzburg Festival. She has won both the First Prize and the Critics Award at The Maria Calla Competition in Verona in 2012 where the Callas Estate presented her with the miraculous medal once owned and worn by the legendary singer.
In recent seasons, her important role and house debuts have included Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) for Komische Oper Berlin, Adina (L'elisir d'amore) at Semperoper Dresden under Matteo Beltrami, Leila (The Pearl Fishers) conducted by Roland Böer for English National Opera, Tytania (A Midsummer Night's Dream) conducted by James Conlon at
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, and Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor) with Danish National Opera under Martin André.
As a testament to her linguistic strengths, Boyle made her debut as Verdi's Gilda (Rigoletto) at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma under Renato Palumbo to overwhelming audience and critical acclaim.
She performed the role of Alice in Barry's Alice's Adventures Under Ground with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra conducted by Thomas Adès. Claudia recently performed with the New York Philharmonic at the Metropolitan Opera's Lincoln Centre, singing the role of Cecily Cardew in Barry's The importance of Being Earnest.
Her blossoming concert career has taken her further afield to Tokyo, Sao Paolo and Ankara among others places, culminating in her performance at the G20 summit last year. She has appeared at the Salzburger Festspiele in Cherubini's Chant sur la mort de Joseph Haydn under Riccardo Muti and with NHK Symphony Orchestra in Mahler's Symphony No.8 under
Paavo Järvi.
Claudia joined Kent Nagano and Ensemble Modern as Dede for the premiere performances of a new chamber version of Bernstein's A Quiet Place at Konzerthaus Berlin.
Claudia's accompanist for this concert is the exceptional pianist and regular performer for Con Brio, Finghin Collins. Finghin was the winner of the RTÉ Musician of the Future Competition in 1994 and the Classical Category at the National Entertainment Awards in Ireland in 1998.
The following year he went on to take first prize at the Clara Haskil Competition in Switzerland in 1999 (he was a member of the jury of this competition in 2021 and he will chair the jury in 2023 and 2025).
Since then, he has continued to enjoy a flourishing international career that takes him all over Europe and the United States, as well to the Far East and Australia.
Since 2013, he has been Artistic Director of Music for Galway, while he is also the founding Artistic Director, since 2006, of the New Ross Piano Festival in Wexford.
In March 2023 was appointed Artistic
Director of the Dublin International Piano Competition. He is currently curator of the Stanford Centenary Series at the National Concert Hall.
In July 2022 Finghin made his début at the Verbier Festival, replacing András Schiff at short notice.
During the 2022/23 season he performed at the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in Toulouse, the Festival de Zermatt, the Piano Biennale in the Netherlands, the National Concert Hall in Dublin with the Quatuor Ebène and at the Seoul Arts Center in Korea with cellist Mikós Perényi.
The programme for this concert features arias from operas by Mozart, Verdi, Gershwin and Gilbert and Sullivan. It also includes classical song and lieder by Schubert, Richard Strauss and Martini together with popular show songs from
My Fair Lady, Showboat and Edith Piaf's La Vie en Rose. It will also include Thomas Moore's The Last Rose of Summer and Danny Boy.
This promises to be an exceptional concert – a soprano who combines a wonderful singing voice with terrific stage and acting presence accompanied by an outstanding pianist.
It takes place in the Hawk's Well Theatre tomorrow evening, Friday, at 7.30pm.
Tickets at €25 (students €10), can be obtained from the theatre, phone 071 9161518, or online at www.hawkswell.com.